


Design + Kismet: A Divine Collision

by poetica (TheFire_in_the_NightSky)



Category: The Outer Worlds (Video Game)
Genre: Aesthetic Sex, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub Undertones, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends With Benefits, I guess but nothing overt, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Self-Discovery, That's a tag now, fwb to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:02:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21628075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFire_in_the_NightSky/pseuds/poetica
Summary: Oh, how he fell. But there was no comfort or exhilaration in the downward journey, no relief in finally hitting the bottom and making it out alive somehow, unmangled. Loïc did not allow himself to be swallowed up by absolving waves of affection nor cushioned by soft and pretty thoughts of a sound future. It was more like hitting asphalt palms-first; a jarring impact met with a white-hot burn embedding itself beneath your skin. The kind that’d make you curse under breath as you dug out the broken and dirty remnants from your hands for hours. The ache would radiate in your bones for days like the gnaw of unshakable cold.He ached already. It was complete and absolute, that subconscious draw and tug to another body like the order of orbit... or thirst, or hunger.Loïc thought maybe he’d slow this down, too, if he could; make time pour slower and sweeter for them. Snatch it up in his palm, then roll it out and fold it back into itself, over and over.Or: Captain Loïc Pierdut and the Terrors of Falling for Someone when you aren’t quite so sure you know yourself at all anymore, and remembering what caring,really caring,for someone feels like.
Relationships: Male Captain/Maximillian DeSoto, The Captain/Maximillian DeSoto
Comments: 12
Kudos: 85





	Design + Kismet: A Divine Collision

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the songs “Agostina” by Puscifer and “You Will Leave a Mark” by A Silent Film, as well as bits of Ray Bradbury’s collection of short science fiction stories, _The Illustrated Man._
> 
> Loïc's appearance is based off German model, [Dominic Wünsch](https://www.kultmodels.com/sedcard/dominic-wuensch/61940), only... if he was in his late thirties lol
> 
> _“And he listened to me. That was the thing he did, as if he was trying to fill himself up with all the sound he could hear. He listened to the wind and the falling ocean and my voice, always with rapt attention, a concentration that almost excluded physical bodies themselves and kept only the sounds. He shut his eyes to listen.”_
> 
> ― Ray Bradbury, excerpt from _The Rocket Man_ [short story collected in _The Illustrated Man]_

There wasn’t anything special about the night Loïc had his… _revelation,_ as it were. This wasn't supposed to be a part of anyone's plan. Not a grand one and not one made on-the-fly, either. He fucked up. That was putting it plainly. And it was like a scar or a tattoo; he couldn't take it back. Even worse, he didn’t know if he wanted to.

_“...Go slower.”_

Two words. They had been just two words that suddenly made something that should have been nothing, into something proper. Something that _mattered._ They were honest and spontaneous and breathless. A want, laid bare. The desire to hold onto a moment instead of rushing towards the end result.

A request that brought with it a realisation that perhaps this had begun to be something more; but when exactly had that happened? More than a release of tension, an act surpassing primal urges, something growing out of stowed away mutual attraction. A cosmic shift or some bullshit.

It floored Loïc all the same. Acknowledging that swell of affection was nearly suffocating, made him feel tight and cramped with it, much like this void-forsaken single bunk in his quarters that they made the best use of. Was this – them coming together like they were – part of some mystical Equation Max sought guidance and religious understanding in? Could they really just be numbers amongst a string of mathematical and ideological fancy?

Even as fingerprints pressed into the flesh and muscle of his thighs held aloft – a pressure change outside of himself mirrored within – Loïc knew it was something else in the way Max complied so easily and wordlessly, the deep thrust of his pelvis becoming a slow roll, his breath hot upon Loïc’s chin where his lips caught the prick of stubble. Loïc damned himself for saying those words, nearly wishing them unspoken when the kiss came, soft and profound. It was the undercurrent of those three syllables that had him fearful.

Max’s body arched over his, and unthinking, Loïc grabbed for his shoulders, hands moving from the guiding of hips between his legs. And it was something like usual, in how Loïc bit at Max’s lips, and Max answered with a whispered curse and a satisfied smirk before kissing him rougher, hungrier; like punishment. Their lovemaking could be disguised as fucking by the way Max rearranged and manhandled Loïc, rolling him onto his side so their bodies were flush and flushed by the squeeze of body heat between them. Loïc ground himself with the feel of Max's thighs sliding against the backs of his own and the beat of his heart drumming into his spine before Max was pressing into him again.

“Like that?” Max breathed, punctuated with an exaggeratedly slow, but deep thrust. And all Loïc could manage was a sigh and a nod he hoped Max could feel. Soon, he was lost to it all.

He came with Max’s name shoved sweetly between shuddering expletives, clutching tightly to the arms wrapped 'round his chest. And when the vicar crept out of his room that night, Loïc felt like maybe that’d all been a confession if he ever admitted one in his life.

Later on, before he drifted off to sleep, Loïc spoke into the quiet air and asked ADA to put in an order for him for a Spacer’s Choice full-bed, feeling the cold emptiness of his spacious quarters for the first time.

But that persistent itch in his mind that arose when he’d first kissed Max hardly ceased, even in dreams. If he looked inside himself, really looked, he could maybe see this as hope.

Think, think, _think._

* * *

Loïc didn’t want or know if he had room for romantic endearment deep inside him, didn't recall what that even felt like, but he supposed he lost his footing with Max anyway, and began a plummet somewhere within the intimate span of time they passed together on or off the ship.

And oh, how he fell. But there was no comfort or exhilaration in the downward journey, no relief in finally hitting the bottom and making it out alive somehow, unmangled. Loïc did not allow himself to be swallowed up by absolving waves of affection nor cushioned by soft and pretty thoughts of a sound future. It was more like hitting asphalt palms-first; a jarring impact met with a white-hot burn embedding itself beneath your skin. The kind that’d make you curse under breath as you dug out the broken and dirty remnants from your hands for hours. The ache would radiate in your bones for days like the gnaw of unshakable cold.

He ached already. It was complete and absolute, that subconscious draw and tug to another body like the order of orbit... or thirst, or hunger.

Loïc thought maybe he’d slow this down, too, if he could; make time pour slower and sweeter for them. Snatch it up in his palm, then roll it out and fold it back into itself, over and over.

But his new, strange time-altering defect was only good for killing, only worked for him when his left eye hovered before the glass of a scope and he squeezed the trigger on a held breath as life drifted by like debris across the rippling surface of water.

Who’d he been before, really? He knew he was smart and skilled with a rifle; knew how to hack computer systems or take apart and reassemble an engine, and quickly figured out how to do the same for the unfamiliar guns he needed to clean. But he couldn't pick apart his own life prior to cryostasis on the Hope. He had his own personality (as far as he knew, it was his) and a name, but that knowledge seemed to be ingrained in his bones. That's why he couldn't walk around pretending to be Captain Hawthorne of the _Unreliable_ , even if only by name. _Loïc Vasile Pierdut_ was the one thing that was inarguably his.

But this feeling with Max brought back a strange nostalgia. Loïc couldn’t call it a memory, because that’s not truly what it was. It was more like hearing a familiar and beloved film or program playing in another room, and being able to close your eyes and play out the visual picture on the backs of your eyelids. Only thing was, Loïc didn’t even have a complete picture saved to memory that he could recall for it.

He just knew the vicar made him feel something that slithered within his veins day in and day out, maybe not keeping him alive, but more so reminding him he was.

* * *

Fallbrook. Bit of business, bit of R&R and restock. They were there, he and Max, just suspended in a mute moment of spectating; watching their fellow crew members mill about Malin’s place until they split off, some staying to mingle with patrons downstairs, others up to The Tipsy Sprat for a much-needed drink. The usual jaundice glow and electrical hum of the interior lighting of the building became something almost joyous and hopeful right then. Perhaps not ever sunny, no, but dim spotlights singling out breaks in the surrounding fog of chaos and walled-out desolation that plagued daily uniformity.

Loïc turned his head to watch Max standing beside him. In profile, he looked stern as always, that touch of permanent misery that hung around him, but something about his eyes, the set of his jaw, seemed a little softer. The intersecting web of string lights suspended over them and the neon of the pathway bathed Max in pale magenta and blue-violet; Loïc knew he looked that way, too. The whole main stretch of this tiny speck of a cavern town was like that: translucent cool tones washing over sharp corners and curving silhouettes of dull metal; reflecting off the rust-coloured boxwork of looping, rocky structures; leather and gun barrels ashine with the prism of it all.

Through the open doorway, he saw Ellie give them an upward nod of her chin and an all too devious smirk (which Loïc had a sure feeling was solely directed at him) before taking a swig from her beer bottle. Loïc smiled back and tipped his head minutely, watching her walk away. If he had a sister in his old life, Loïc didn’t remember, but he imagined it’d be something like his bond with Ellie or Nyoka. Gleefully cynical, obnoxious pains-in-the-ass, the both of them.

Loïc faced Max and slowly crowded his space without a word, pressing his front all along Max’s side as he did so. He brought one arm across Max’s waist, fingers pressing a trail over his stomach and beneath his open jacket. He let the tip of his nose settle in the curve of Max’s cheekbone, closing his eyes and exhaling slowly as he felt Max tense a little at the show of open affection in public.

“Drink or get out of here?” Loïc quietly asked. When he felt Max wrap an arm low around his back, Loïc smiled slightly and lifted his head.

Max quirked a brow at him and gave both Loïc and their close proximity a scrutinising once-over. When he spoke, Max’s voice was low and flat. “The merc has a soft side. Better to not show your belly, Captain.” Max turned to look straight ahead again. There was no feeling either way behind the words, and Loïc didn’t care to parse meaning behind the insignificant barb coupled with the physical encouragement of their blatant, intimate closeness.

Loïc brought his hand up to Max’s chin and turned his face back towards him. “I think I asked you a question.”

With a wry grin, Max folded Loïc’s hand in his and lowered it from his face. The leather of Max’s glove was cool from the night air and not at all warmed from his body heat the way the rest of his clothing was. “Well, I could absolutely use a drink or two.”

Their faces were still close, so much so that Loïc could brush a quick kiss against Max’s lips before the man could even realise what had happened. He licked his own lips instead. “Mm, I have a wicked avarice for something else, to be frank.”

“Then I ask _you,_ why not both?” Max disentangled himself from Loïc and walked backwards a couple paces before disappearing into Malin’s. Before Loïc could debate too long on following, Nyoka leaned out and against the doorway, clearly enjoying a nice buzz already. “Not joining us, Lo?” she asked with a small frown. 

Max reappeared over her shoulder and drifted by and back out the door with a bottle of whiskey swinging in hand. He stopped next to Loïc, and Loïc turned on his charm for Nyoka. _“Busy._ You know how it is.”

“Oh, _I know._ Wait.” She pointed a finger at them. “Wait, you– you gonna fuck the preacher-man? 'Cause _somebody_ needs to, Law be damned.”

Loïc knew his jaw had become slack with his loss for quick-witted words, but he didn’t much know what to do about it. Thankfully, Max spoke instead.

“Nyoka, a class act, as always.”

Nyoka scoffed and crossed her arms. “Max. A fuckin’ killyjoy-tight-ass, as always.”

Loïc watched Max roll his eyes. “I think we’ll leave the children to play now.” He turned on his heel and began walking off, not bothering to wait for Loïc. Loïc gave Nyoka a smile that was definitely more of a grimace as he shrugged and moved to catch up with Max.

A second later he heard Nyoka yell, “Loosen him up good, Cap!” 

That had Max stopping in his tracks.

It seemed he didn’t care a wit for the few pairs of eyes on them all now, because he simply grinned crookedly at Loïc and without breaking eye contact, called back to Nyoka, “I can rightly assure you it’ll be the other way around, Ms. Wentworth!”

Loïc scowled and their only reply from Nyoka was a cackle and an excited, slurred shout of Ellie’s name as she ducked back into the building. He could only hope they kept this shit to themselves and didn’t go blabbing on to Felix or Parvati.

The two of them walked off together towards the opening of the mountain cavern, Loïc already having it in his head they’d be heading back to the ship for some privacy. Well, they could keep themselves away from company of the flesh and blood variety, anyway.

“I am not fucking you in that matchbox of a bunk again tonight, by the way.” Max’s voice was matter-of-fact and nearly irritated. “I know your VIP ‘luxuries,’ courtesy of Catherine, include the benefit of a real bed. Or something that’s at least passable as one, anyway.”

Loïc swallowed, combed a hand back through his dark hair, simply to delay by a few seconds, words he didn’t really have. “Yeah... I got the keycard with me.” He decided it might not hurt to test the waters with Max, wade a little deeper than normal. He could call the whole thing off if he got a reaction he didn’t like. “Also ordered a bigger bed for my quarters. Just got to, uh– fly out to Groundbreaker to pick it up in about a week’s time. Junlei said she’d let me know when the shipment came in.”

But Max didn’t say anything. Not when they reached the amber glow of the porch to the little domicile, not when Loïc used his keycard on the door, and not when Max broke the seal on the whiskey bottle as soon as they stepped over the threshold and the _whish_ of the closing doors sounded behind them. Loïc settled his weight back against the doors and began unbuckling his thigh holster, watching the line of Max’s shoulders as he took another pull from the bottle. Laying his holster over a nearby container, Loïc cleared his throat to get Max’s attention. Max turned, setting the whiskey down on the little bedside table. Loïc couldn't quite take his eyes off the way the man pulled at his gloves, one finger at a time, and placed them neatly on the table. He motioned Max over before he lost his senses.

When he was near enough, Loïc grabbed Max by his shirtfront and tugged him close. “C’mere,” he breathed and made sure Max got the message real clear, that he wanted to be pressed bodily into the doors, wanted a rough touch. Instead, what Loïc got was the slow collision of bodies and Max gripping his face in both hands, lover-like. Their noses brushed and Loïc felt his eyelids grow heavy with the tension of Max’s tease of a kiss. All it took was a single, soft caress of lips for Loïc to lose his resolve and break him wide open again. It was like lightning carving out a wound in his chest, charring tendrils of something viscous and black that made him feel like he might bleed out right here on this dingy floor if he thought on it too long.

Max still cupped his jaw like he cared and Loïc stared back into the deep green of his eyes. “Sometimes I think I might’ve had a guy.” The words slipped out easily, and Loïc realised it was Max that brought out some sort of dormant honesty in him. A profession to be cleansed out like some dirty sin. “Before, I mean. On Earth, on the Hope, I’m not sure. I keep trying to remember, but maybe I just dreamt ‘im up. The idea of him. But there's this…” He motioned vaguely. “Emptiness.”

Max immediately moved his hands to brace himself on the door, arms on either side of Loïc’s head. He gave a put-upon sigh in what seemed like an unconscious effort, but clear disappointment pulled down his features. “Couldn’t you just ask that mad scientist friend of yours? Welles? I’m sure there is a manifest or something he could look into.”

“That’s the thing,” Loïc began. He held his breath a moment, waiting for Max to perhaps move away completely. “It’s been eating me alive for months because I don’t think I want to know anymore, if it’s real. And what kind of man does that make me?”

“The kind that moves forward with what life has made for him. One that does not dwell.” Max leaned in, kissed Loïc like he didn’t want to hear anymore about the confusion in Loïc’s heart or fucked up, cryo-sick brain. He figured Max knew a thing or two about dwelling on shit, anyway.

Loïc pushed Max’s arms down to his sides, gripped his jacket and pulled it roughly down and off his shoulders, eliciting from him a pleased hum as Loïc continued to peel the leather away. He let it drop to the floor in a heavy heap. “Think we were supposed to end up like this, then?” Loïc asked with narrowed eyes, fingers already plucking at the shirt buttons over Max’s throat and chest. “Is this part of your predestination? ...‘Cause I don’t wanna stop.” He didn’t think he could at this point, needed this thing he and Max had like a remedy to all the blood he shed. Even if it went ‘round and ‘round to nowhere.

Max stepped away from Loïc but danced him forward at the waist until they were pressed chest-to-chest again. His voice rumbled against Loïc’s lips on the barest hint of a kiss. “It isn’t _my_ predestination. And I don’t think I’m an expert on the matter anymore.”

They walked back towards the bed in kiss-distracted, jilted steps. Max sat heavily on the bed, watching with cool interest as Loïc divested himself of his own jacket and boots. Max reached for the whiskey off the table and drank, then handed the bottle off to Loïc and Loïc took a deep pull from the mouth of it. Though, he was eagerly awaiting that warm flutter in his stomach that marked the shift in his and Max’s quiet, mutual attraction. The burn of whiskey would do for now, but Loïc could be an impatient man.

When Max pulled Loïc down by his wrist, Loïc went easily into his lap, giving up the bottle again as he did so. And when Max tipped the bottle to Loïc’s mouth, the whiskey went smooth across his tongue and down his throat, settling snug in the space behind his lungs with a sandpaper-roughness; not unlike the calloused grip sliding warm and firm over the nape of his neck. He stared down at Max for a moment, sucking in the wet of his bottom lip.

“Something on your mind, Loïc?”

“No,” Loïc answered, voice a throaty hush. “Just you.” He bent forward and Max craned his neck so they could meet in the middle of their well-practised act. Kissing Max, Loïc tasted more than the whiskey coating their mouths. “You said my name,” he panted, their kissing becoming messier. It was either _Captain_ or nothing at all from Max, but not now. “Say it again,” he nearly begged, tried not to. Another request without shame; more words to undo the puzzle of himself.

Max left the bottle to be forgotten on the table and tugged at Loïc’s button-down to free it from his waistband, smoothed his hand over the skin revealed below the rucked up material, gently waking and lighting up Loïc’s nerves. All the while, the palm of Max’s other hand pressed between the spread of Loïc’s thighs to the stiff line of his cock. _“Lo-ïc,”_ he mouthed the hard consonant into the warmth of Loïc’s neck with the flippancy of a taunt. But like tiny insect legs, a prickling chill ran upward and out across Loïc’s back at the sound of it anyway, and he found it difficult to suppress the high-pitched groan that left his throat. “I'm sure there's a joke I could make about feeding more than just your ego here.” 

Loïc rolled his hips downward, his head to the side as Max continued to kiss along the edge of his shirt collar, pulling at Max’s hair in a petulant bid for more before he could mouth off again. Another utterance of Loïc’s name came with a more persistent press of Max’s hand on his dick in answer to the sudden thinning of his patience.

“Fuck, I want you to take me so bad.” He covered Max’s hand with his own, feeling the shape of himself in the bend and curve of Max’s fingers. It’d only been a little over a week since they’d done something like this, but heated glances as they’d pass one another in the mess were enough to drive him to small madness.

“Get on the bed then,” Max directed Loïc.

He needed the order. Needed something to hang onto above all the dissonance he faced since he woke up in this strange gathering of planets. He slid from Max’s lap onto the bed, pulling him along and welcoming the cage of his body over his as he laid himself out in the middle of the mattress. He let his want flare in the movement of limbs and tremulous breaths, while their hands wandered from clavicles and broad shoulders exposed by open shirts to shove beneath the front of unbuttoned trousers.

Hardened heat filled up his grip as Max rutted into his palm with tight, circular motions of his hips. The edge of a bite dragged up his jawline and then Max was pulling Loïc’s pants down with violent little tugs. Loïc turned his head to catch another deep kiss, squeezing his busy hand a bit more and making Max moan for it, even as Loïc’s own pleased sound whimpered out of him for how his cock began to throb and leak into the tight hollow of Max’s fist.

Loïc guessed what they got up to probably didn’t rightly fit what the OSI believed. He didn’t yet know how much it was frowned upon, but Loïc figured most that would happen would be Scienticians turning their nose up at two men set in a relationship that wouldn’t further the population growth. Or maybe they accepted people like them more because of that; less future workers, but also less mouths to feed. Perhaps they just figured it was what it was: fated. That was the OSI’s whole thing, right? Loïc supposed he could’ve been making a heretic out of Max by having invited him onto his ship in the first place, and then into his bed with growing frequency as time passed.

They undressed in the hurried manner Loïc was used to, he didn’t bother trying to stall what they both wanted. He didn’t want it neat.

Max brushed away a dark wave of hair that had fallen over Loïc’s right eye, thumb lingering against his forehead before pressing his own there in a slow nuzzle. “Does my captain require a soft touch tonight?” 

Loïc’s hands went to Max’s sides, danced along the sleek form of thick muscle covering bone, fingers tracing the sharp ridges of Max’s shoulder blades as he leaned over him, predatory and protecting, both. He held onto Max for leverage, ground his hips upwards and down again in a slow, constant drag. He could feel the wet trail Max’s cock left along the line of his hip. Their breath quickened for a burst of a moment, lips lazily touching in a formless press. “I want you to treat me like I’m yours.” The words rushed out as if they had an impatience all their own and Loïc kissed Max hard and lingering, hands now cupping the hint of stubble at his cheeks.

Max sighed out into the kiss, _“Oh, but you are.”_

It wasn’t possessiveness, no. Max knew Loïc better than that, by now. That he wouldn’t want to feel owned, just wanted. Loïc didn’t quite need, and Max didn’t at all. The ardour of want was better, genuine; something akin to fortune in this unfortunate junkyard of time and place and life. With a body that knew what it was to beat a man to death, to pray, to love, to fuck, Max moved Loïc onto his stomach, loud smacks of kisses making their mark over his shoulder, up the back of his neck while Loïc fumbled for the drawer of the bedside table, knowing he’d stashed lube there for a situation such as this one. He couldn’t feel embarrassed over it, and he was glad he didn’t have to come up with a snide retort when Max didn’t remark upon his preparedness. They embraced the sweet violence of when they let their bodies take out the stress and frustrations of what they faced daily, blood pumping and breaths held and released in the middle of what they’d created between them. Quiet in their loud, immolating adoration, like the blaze of a star dying on and on, forever away. Imploding with alacrity to burn the outer reaches of themselves, undiscovered.

Loïc turned his head best he could to kiss Max when he felt cool-slick fingers pass over his hole, his balls, the sensitive spot right between. Pushed his knees up and apart a little further, moaned at the rough squeeze Max gave his ass cheek as he spread him open and more exposed. The lick of tongues pressed against each other, lips wet and flushed with it, teeth adding an intermittent sharp bruise to it all. Awkward angle and all, Loïc loved kissing Max like this, all passion and desire firing over a taut thread keeping them together; his body contained between the give of a mattress and the hard line of Max’s body.

He loved the sound of Max slicking himself up, that pinpoint-sharp, anticipatory precipice they experienced together right before either one of them screwed the other’s brains out, really. And this time, Max snuck his hand down to cup Loïc’s balls afterwards, gave Loïc a few beautiful, frictionless pumps around his foreskin that just made ‘im want to fuck into the circle of Max’s lube-coated palm and fingers. But soon the frisson of need scolded his veins to burn his entire heart out when Max let go and Loïc began to feel that blunt press of Max’s cockhead against his entrance. He gripped Loïc’s waist gently, helped guide him onto his elbows and knees, moved with even gentler thrusts until he just barely sat snug past the tight furl of muscle.

 _“C’mon, Loïc.”_ Max’s voice was smooth and tense, his fingertips pressing into Loïc’s flesh with the strength of his self-restraint. He gave a little bump of his pelvis into Loïc.

Loïc pushed back slowly, feeling the ache in his arms and thighs as he held himself up and rocked his body to take in Max’s dick increments at a time. The stretch was sweetness and warmth striped with the tightrope walk of pleasure-pain.

Slow again, slowly towards that press to fullness, Max sighing out a contented moan with him when his hips were finally tight against Loïc’s ass. And after, it was all tender touches across his thighs, his waist, his lower back while Max barely picked up the pace. Loïc arching into every caress, every nail bite against skin that broke through his heavy smoke-like lust – bright in its greyness, smothering to light-headedness when it got stifling. And that grey transferred to the two of them, between them and what they were and what they were no longer. That cauterising slice between two halves of black and white simplicity that this whole star system hadn’t the patience for. And they were two men teetering on that blood-tinged knife’s edge, trying to make sense or meaning out of the design hidden between the ripples of their drifting lives and the potential fission that could come with remaking it.

Loïc gripped the pillow under his head, grunted into the flattened cushion of it, bowed his back, giving himself over to the insistent, deep press of Max's hips against his ass and thighs, punching to the core of him. Max pulled him up a little further to snake his arms around Loïc’s sides, embracing and blanketing him, safe but certainly not sound; probably not a damn cogent thought between them. But who needed clarity right now when every fucking _feeling_ and emotion was so potent? Loïc knew Max had to feel it, too. This was nothing like the other times they fell into bed together, not even the last time when the change in how they felt was marked into them like a brand.

And when he couldn't take it anymore, couldn't put in the mental or physical effort to hold himself up, it was like Max sensed it in the quiver of Loïc’s body. He laid Loïc out flat with more easy motions, and hands came up over Loïc’s forearms, his wrists, to rest over his scabbed knuckles, twining their fingers together. The movement of their bodies had Loïc rutting into the soft folds of the blankets beneath him, Max barely pulling out now with each thrust; deep and drowning, he fucked him.

“Fuck. _Oh, fuck.”_ Loïc groaned. _“Please._ Don't stop.” The muscles in his thighs tightened, his senses heightened down to one thing; a trigger pull, the breath of a drug, a tingling mouthful of whiskey. _Not fucking dying._

And right then, it was like time slowin’ down – that lavender-hued tree-sap drip of watch arm ticks – with Max grinding him to a pulp to stain the bed with their confused and honest lovemaking while something covalent sparked between them.

Every painfully slow slide met that spot inside him, a pressure point of pleasure, but he needed more of it, almost desperately so. “Harder, _fuck!”_ Loïc’s voice was strained with his need to come, but Max answered with a snap of his hips. “Harder?” he asked Loïc, and Loïc was just this side of coherent enough to hear the cocky smile in his voice. A breathy assent escaped his throat and Loïc relished the way Max took control then, pulling them both a little onto their right sides so he could still fuck him like this, but Loïc could reach his hand down to jerk himself off.

With his free hand, Loïc brought his arm up to grab for Max, to turn his head so their mouths could meet while Loïc gasped and let out quick and shaky exhales over their tongues, and Max could tell him, like a dirty secret or a sin, how he wanted to feel him come on his dick, wanted to make Loïc come so fuckin’ hard.

Of course, Loïc did, almost directly after, his hand finding a perfect rhythm to match with Max’s until his mouth went slack against on an agonised moan for how his orgasm took ‘im. The sound Max made was almost fond. He kissed at Loïc’s chin, licked at his bottom lip, trying to coax one more sloppy kiss out of Loïc before rolling him back onto his belly to fuck him into the mattress. His hands found Loïc’s again as an unconscious reminder of what this was. 

It was close to being too much, but then Max was burying his cock into Loïc so impossibly deep, flooding and coating his insides, warm and soothing his overstimulated nerves; Max gripping his shoulders, chest mashing down onto his back with surprisingly gentle ease. And Loïc let out a pleased hum when Max moaned his name into his hair with one final, sharp thrust.

* * *

Loïc felt his strange sense of vanity, watching Max walk across the small room to grab Loïc his Cosmic Smokes, heedless of his nudity. Out of his OSI vestments, Loïc was able to appreciate the body a not-so-pious life gave the vicar. He’d frequently caught himself staring at the way certain shirts hugged Max’s broad chest or the way a leather holster sat strapped around the muscle of a thigh as he walked, and Loïc supposed he had made himself pretty damn obvious before all this started. But the way they spoke to each other shortly after meeting in Edgewater kind of gave Loïc the sense they might strangle one another or bend the other over a piece of furniture until it broke, and that thought alone had made Loïc hard.

And well, he’d been pretty right about one thing, he supposed.

When Max turned around and tossed Loïc’s smokes onto his chest, Loïc smiled with all the charm he could muster to tell him, “I dunno if I should tell you I hope to look as fit as you when I’m your age, or if you should be telling _me_ that.” He really did love to tease Max about the technicalities of where Loïc’s trip in cryostasis put him, age-wise.

He slid open the pack, pulled out a cigarette and placed the little purple filter between his lips as Max crawled atop him to light the end, all gentlemanly and sweet. Until he snapped closed the lighter to dip down Loïc’s body and suck and tongue at where his cockhead just peeked from his foreskin. Loïc closed his eyes with a sigh as he exhaled smoke, ran his fingers through Max’s hair, petting but barely encouraging. Right as his cock began to plump with interest, Max gave him one last lick and moved over Loic to steal the cigarette from his mouth, taking a drag.

“I’m not having this pointless argument with you again.” Max exhaled the rest of the smoke in his lungs, leaned down to kiss Loïc. He knew Loïc loved to taste himself on Max’s tongue. The bittersweet tang of his come mingled with the burnt coffee taste of tobacco smoke.

Loïc’s fingers searched for the bit of grey that streaked through the sides of Max’s ash-brown hair, thought of the white he could just start to see at his own temples and in his too-long stubble that peppered his jaw and chin. In the moment, these little things made him strangely happy.

But there were times when he looked in the mirror, saw the little lines that seemed to appear overnight around the tired blue of his eyes, or even the crease between his brows (because apparently he “walked around looking angry too much” according to Parvati), that made Loïc feel like he didn’t really know himself all over again. To hear you lost seventy years and had come out the other end looking like this would disorient even the sanest person. From freshly thirty-eight to a time-defying one hundred and eight in a blink. He wasn’t even supposed to be alive, technically.

Some mornings he wondered, morbidly, if he’d go to sleep one night feeling relatively normal – his version of it, anyhow – to waking up with organ failure or total cognitive loss or some equally awful shit like that. He had no access to anything that enabled him to run his own blood tests, could only go by Phineas’s word and his own medical knowledge to make sure his mind and body weren’t slipping up or falling apart at the sutured seams.

He dropped his hand from Max’s hair to take back the cigarette. “I like it like this,” he said on a whim. He took a puff from the cigarette.

“Like what, exactly?” Max asked as he rolled off Loïc to lie next to him.

Loïc wondered if he should bring up what’d changed between them, what it felt like now. Instead, he took the easy way out ‘cause he didn’t know how to put it into words. “This,” he stated simply, then covered his tracks with a change of subject that lacked a true segue. “Y’know… at your age, m’surprised you hadn’t already found someone. Were married or something. Figured you’d have a wife, maybe a punk-ass teenager with daddy issues sulking around because his father was always too busy having his nose in religious texts.”

Max made an annoyed, disbelieving sound at the back of his throat and chuckled. “Now you’re just describing part of _my_ childhood.” He took a pause, seemingly thinking over what Loïc said. Loïc took the opportunity to shimmy himself closer to Max until he could pillow the back of his head in the little nook between Max’s shoulder and chest. “No, I– I'd just simply never met anyone who I didn't see myself growing bored with or who didn't get in my way.”

It’s not like Loïc really expected anything less out of Max. “Just threw everything into the path of Scientism’s cause? Surprised you never thought to find a woman even after you’d got out of prison, maybe start a family in that time...”

“A family man, really? Is that how you view me, even now, Loïc?” Loïc loved the small, backwards-facing parentheses that furrowed the middle of Max’s brow. “I am not _with a woman_ because I have never _been_ with a woman, period. So no, I wouldn't deign to marry one, either. I tried, in my younger years, of course, after leaving home. Just not quite in the way you’re implying. That was before I realised I preferred a cock shoved in my ass – or in the case with you more often, _doing_ the shoving.” Max’s mouth curled to one side as he peered down at Loïc. “I haven’t had to worry about the obligation of family that way, either. Don’t even get me started on _children.”_ He plucked the cigarette from between Loïc’s lips, took a drag, then ashed over his side of the bed. Loïc didn’t give a shit, he could always bring SAM down here to clean the place up.

“Ah, well. Here, here, praise the Architect, and all that, I guess. I can’t recall if I ever wanted that for myself, personally. I know I don’t now, though. And that’s good enough for me. I suppose I just figured it sounded like you looked up to your parents so much is all. Maybe you wanted what they had together.”

The arm Max had around Loïc’s side hugged him closer. He brushed his thumb over the top of Loïc’s hip bone, back and forth or with tight little circles of touch. “I merely coveted their happiness, their contentment. Finding what they had in the study of the Plan has brought me to where I am, for better or worse. It’s the way it’s supposed to be. If there isn’t room for anything else, I shall not question it. I’ve spent far too long in my studies and contemplation to let anything get in the way of that enlightenment I seek.” Near Loïc’s ear, Max’s heart beat a sudden, nervous rhythm. “Erhm… Pausing to reconsider what I am doing, whether it is the right thing and a part of my true path... I’ll confess that that hasn’t really put me in the best of positions.”

“Well,” Loïc grinned wickedly as Max passed the cigarette back once more. The thin paper crackled sun-red over the bit of white that was left. Ash fell somewhere to the rumpled sheet near his armpit. He brushed off his bare skin. “I would have to argue emphatically with that last part of your statement, Max,” he finished, unable to help the laugh buoying his words.

Max’s arm went lax around him. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re an insufferable _ass,_ sometimes?”

“I reckon that’s why we get on so well.” Several seconds passed, but Max had no slick retort to that. Loïc decided to make a half-hearted attempt at lightening the mood further. “How do those marriage contracts work around here, again?” He did his best to keep a straight face, even as Max turned his head to shoot him an incredulous look.

“Planning on settling down, Captain? Found a man to put up with your irresponsible spontaneity? Your _cock_ sure attitude?” Max willingly and knowingly took the bait.

Loïc shrugged and took a long drag from his cigarette, rearranging his head on Max’s chest before passing the last of his smoke to Max’s outstretched fingers. “I see something I fancy enough, I intend to keep it. Like my gun, for instance.”

“I am _not_ like your rifle, I–”

“Never said it was you, aye. You’re a real arrogant, cocky son-of-a-bitch, y’know?” Loïc smiled, feeling Max stiffen. He clasped his hands over his stomach with a smug reserve.

“I will not hesitate to use you as an ashtray. So spare us both the smell of burnt chest hair and mind your glib remarks, _Loïc.”_ Max sat up, effectively shoving Loïc off him.

“Hey, I might like it, if you ever wanna try–” But Loïc was quickly silenced when Max reached over him to the little round plastic ashtray on the table, tamping out the purple cigarette butt. He pressed their lips together roughly, making Loïc feel like words might not be so necessary for the rest of the night.

* * *

A few days later, Max having had his weird, drug-fueled “vision quest” (Loïc near fucking ready to fight hallucinations for 'im... or suggest a threesome when a secondary, glowy-eyed “pure” Max showed up – not Loïc’s proudest moment in recent memory, to be true) and his religious epiphany leaving him wanting and feeling spaced, adrift in a nihilistic void, Loïc was right there, steadfast for him. Max standing quiet, right inside his doorway just like the first night they'd kissed, and Loïc was reminded of the fondness in that initial press of lips, the tentative swipe of a tongue like a question unspoken. Only Loïc stepped forward to hold him this time, held him tightly in silence until Max leaned back to search his face, eyes taking Loïc in like a breath upon waking. As Max kissed him, mouth opening, their heads tilting, being as lovers, real and true and simple… Loïc thought maybe Max had been in his own sort of stasis, too.

Amidst the chaos, they came a little closer to the anaphase of who they thought they were, and who they might already be. A rending of the soul. Loïc discovering acceptance in the uncertainty all around him, and Max trying to come to terms with how he could divulge meaning in anything, that he got to _pick._ Didn’t matter what it was. But they could be happy, together. That was a decision they both got to make.

That night, on almost-crisp sheets tangled around their calves and ankles, the expanse of bespeckled, star-full space stretching beyond thick glass behind them, Loïc gasped and painted across Max’s torso right above where he'd already spilled over himself, like an anointment. Learned love where their bodies had intersected. Each rise and fall of their chests and every pump of their arteries taking them closer to their own personal divination.

They lay there in the muzzy after effects of orgasm – eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose – still a little sticky in the mess they made of one another, holding fast to exhausted bodies, just for the comforting nearness of it, not needing to say a word. No sarcastic quips, no chips being knocked off shoulders. A handful of lazy, sleepy kisses to wet and pinken their mouths again, hands in hair, fingers tracing the shell of an ear or the line of a jaw, but nothing more needed until drowsiness gave way to the undertow of sleep. And Max never felt the necessity of leaving, tangled close with Loïc in the comforts of that spacious new bed during the night.

* * *

Come morning, before Loïc could indulge his small well of panic from the left side of the bed being empty, but haphazardly made, he heard ADA’s monotone, yet mildly passive-aggressive voice fill the room. “Good morning, Captain. Upon your waking, Max wished for me to inform you he would be in his quarters. There was something he needed to take care of. He has not been gone for very long.”

“Oh, alright… How did he seem to you?”

Silence, and then: “He seemed… happy.” 

If an AI could sound quietly taken aback, that’s how ADA’s reply came across to Loïc. He got up out of bed, combing his fingers back through his hair that had turned into loose, unruly curls in the night. After scooping up his boxers from the floor to put on, he shuffled over towards his storage crate where he kept some of his clothing and armour. While pulling on a pair of black tac pants he fished out of there, the scent of bitter black coffee filled his nose. He fished out a wrinkled, grey tee and walked over to his desk. There sat a chipped mug of just barely steaming, soil-brown coffee.

“How romantic,” drawled ADA.

“Yeah, yeah…” Loïc waved a hand in the general direction of his AI’s sensors as he tugged on his t-shirt. He snatched up his boots and socks from the foot of his bed and sat down.

“Captain, may I ask you something?”

“Sure, shoot.” Loïc pulled on his socks, then his boots. His muscles felt both a little stiff and sore from last night.

“Would you prefer it if I used your first name? You do seem to like it very much when Max–”

“Fucking _void,_ ADA!” Loïc groaned, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Alright, new rule: unless I say otherwise, shut off complete audio and visual surveillance to my room whenever Max and I are both here. Green?”

If an AI could huff out a sigh…

“Yes, Captain.”

“Alright, then.”

He got up, grabbed his coffee and headed for the door, but as it whisked open, ADA made sure she got one final word in.

“Would you like me to send SAM in to clean the sheets?”

“Piss off,” Loïc grumbled as he headed into the hall.

* * *

When Loïc sauntered into Max’s room, he was sitting at his cramped desk, scribbling in a thin book. He lifted his head, giving Loïc a small, pleased smile. “Close the doors, will you?” he said, absently, going back to writing. 

“Yeah, sure.” Loïc reached back to lightly punch the door console with the side of his fist. Once the doors slid shut behind him he asked, “What’s that? Taking notes?” Although, Loïc noticed there were no other open texts on Max’s desk like usual.

“Mm, not exactly. Come here.” When Max beckoned him over, his voice hadn’t an ounce of sternness to it, but it still set Loïc’s skin alight. Loïc took a long gulp of his coffee, walked over to Max and set his mug down on a clear space of the desk. Max slid a hand up Loïc’s lower back when he got close enough. “I’m trying to think of it as my… anger management, if you will. Something to ground and centre myself. I’ve always journaled, but perhaps not as often as I should.”

Loïc placed his hand on Max’s right shoulder, leaned against his left. He felt Max give his hip a little squeeze. “Oh yeah? Think it’ll work?” His eyes passed over the open pages, but Loïc didn’t let himself absorb any of the scrawled words.

Max sighed, tilting his head to the side as he stared down at his journal, tapping the end of his fountain pen against the paper. “Well,” He smiled. “You’ll always be in need of another gunhand, I’m sure. So, if all else fails…”

“Blast a mantiqueen to bits?”

“Something like that,” Max said, laughing. He looked up to Loïc, still smiling, and there was that now-familiar spark that fired off between them. Loïc bent forward to kiss him, slow and maddening. Max’s fingers played warm and delicate across the pulse point of his throat. 

He took a couple short steps back to stand behind Max’s chair and leaned down to wrap his arms around his shoulders. “I could leave you to it for a little while, until you’re finished. I mean, you know where to find me.” Loïc kissed Max’s jaw as he spoke. “Nyoka and Ellie are heading out to Cascadia with me this evening, though.”

Max grasped onto Loïc’s wrist, over his chest. “No... I’d like you to stay, actually.”

“Okay. Thanks for the coffee, by the way.”

“It tastes like what I imagine raptidon-shit-infested water tastes like. But, you’re welcome.”

Max straightened his journal to his liking and began to write again, only this time it seemed as though he made an attempt to write more legibly, as if for Loïc’s benefit.

_What I feel for him is unexpected, not of what I could have foreseen for myself,_ Max wrote and Loïc’s mouth went desert-dry. He looked away, turning his head, but Max rubbed firm circles around the bone of his wrist with his thumb, as if to tell him it was okay to look.

 _He creeps around my head like a vine. An all-encompassing surprise, throwing me off-kilter. But, I suppose that is_ (and here, a strong blot of ink bled from the _s_ to mark Max’s hesitation with his pen) _the point of life. Discovering the unknown._

_It is warm and new, and in the passing weeks, I've come to realise how welcome this growing, intimate attachment is. It cools the heels of my destructive urges, both towards myself and others._

_In truth, it makes us vulnerable– a blind spot, a weak point._

_But it is also something to be savoured, something soft, like love. Or what I imagine it to be. Time, of course, will tell and I've quite a lot of it to make up for. To live. I believe now, only in the purgation I find in his company. I believe in him._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to anyone taking the time to read this, and your kudos, comments, & feedback are ever adored. Seriously♡
> 
> Thank you, Obsidian, for this brilliant game, but _fuck you_ for not letting us bend Vicar Max over, yeah?
> 
> You can find me on tumblr @thefire-in-the-nightsky and Twitter @oh_amatus :)


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